Eight hundred and twentieth chapters Great Tang gentry Guedes
After boarding the navy's patrol ship from the Shanghai port, Gerdes was not very interested in the patrol ship he was sitting on, because it was just an ordinary sand ship, not a new type of ship that was slender and graceful.
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However, when he passed by Wusong Port again, he was amazed when he saw more than ten battleships. Such slender and graceful battleships, no matter how long he looked at them, he would not get bored!
Gerdes didn't know much about these new warships of the Tang Navy. He just knew that they were specially designed by the Tang Navy and there were no similar ship types in the world.
And all you can see is the appearance.
From the appearance point of view, this new type of Datang warship, whether it is a cruiser, a frigate or a patrol ship, its hull has a very obvious feature, that is, it is relatively slender and has a relatively large aspect ratio. This obvious feature has
Pedestrians can tell at a glance that this is a ship that pays more attention to speed.
However, all they can see is the appearance. They don't know that the interior of this kind of hull is a watertight cabin, and for the defense performance of the warship, the internal cabin that can be used to load cargo is not large, and it is equipped with
For supplies, after bringing sailors with you, you basically cannot load additional cargo.
Compared with other ship types such as the Galen ship and Karaka these days, which are mainly for loading and supplemented by combat, the combat performance is greatly improved, but the economy is not good.
This is also the reason why the Tang Dynasty Navy has not used this ship type on cargo ships since it designed it. This thing is not suitable for use as a cargo ship.
It would be possible to remove the internal watertight compartments and expand the cargo space, but in this case, the protective performance will be lost. In addition to the faster speed, the cargo capacity cannot reach the level of a Galen ship.
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At the same time, the complex mast and sail assembly brings maneuverability and speed, but it also leads to an increase in cost.
Therefore, so far, this new ship type of the Tang Dynasty has not become popular in cargo transportation, and the difference between military and civilian ships is still relatively large.
What military ships need is combat effectiveness, and cost is not a big problem for military ships.
However, civilian ships need economical ships that not only have a low cost, but also need to carry a lot of cargo and have a certain economic speed.
The design concepts of the two are completely different.
If the current warship type of the Tang Dynasty Navy is to be changed into a civilian cargo ship, it will need to be modified in all aspects. However, no one has done this difficult and difficult thing now. Civilian shipyards are more willing to build traditional ships.
The sand ship, Guangzhou ship or Fu ship, well, recently some people have also begun to build Western-style Galen ships.
Military hulls are expensive to build and have not been tested by the market. Ship dealers are unwilling to take risks and place orders, so the shipyards themselves will naturally not go through the trouble of undergoing modifications.
The shipyards of the Ministry of Industry basically do not accept orders from outside. They only build warships and focus on designing and developing various military ship types. Recently, they are studying a type proposed by the wise and great Eternal Saint Li Xuan, who is greater than the sun.
Ship type: Clipper ship.
Teachers and students from the Shipbuilding Department of the Royal Institute of Technology have designed a model based on this concept. Through various mathematical calculations, they swore that the speed of this type of hull will reach a new height. In downwind conditions,
If the hull design is reasonable and the sails are properly arranged, the maximum speed may even exceed fifteen knots.
This kind of ship, which can greatly increase the speed, cannot be used as a main battleship because it is difficult to deploy a large number of artillery. And if today's warships want to gain an advantage, it is inevitable to deploy dense naval guns above.
However, the Navy hopes to develop this kind of clipper ship and then use it as a fast transport ship.
At the same time, the shipping companies affiliated with the Royal Industrial Division are also very interested in this type of ship. Ocean trade these days is very far away, and the existing ships are too slow. If they can speed up, even if they have less cargo,
ships, then they represent a vast market.
Don’t worry if you load less goods, the worst thing you can do is make more trips!
More importantly, the reduction of time is extremely advantageous for the traditional export cargo of the Tang Dynasty, 'tea'. Tea has a shelf life, and the sea has high humidity and salt content, which has a great impact on the taste of tea. Transportation on the sea
The shorter the time, the better the quality of the tea can be preserved.
The merchants of the Tang Dynasty had always wanted to open up the tea market in Europe on a large scale.
However, this new ship type is not just as simple as a hollow wave-cutting bow. The hull needs to be redesigned, and even the sails need to be completely new, so it won't be ready for a while.
In the past few years of the Tang Dynasty, Gerdes agreed with and was proud of the Tang Dynasty from the bottom of his heart!
This place is extremely prosperous, with gold almost everywhere, numerous business opportunities, the city is clean and tidy, the people are highly qualified, and the technology is advanced, with numerous technological products.
This made him extremely lucky that he was naturalized in the Tang Dynasty and became a citizen of the Tang Dynasty. Otherwise, he would be able to enjoy the good life he has today and become a decent gentry!
Yes, since Gerdes successfully naturalized and became a citizen of the Tang Dynasty, he has been strict with himself in every aspect almost every moment, trying to make himself a real citizen of the Tang Dynasty and a decent gentry.
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He began to grow his hair long, wear Hanfu robes, study Chinese assiduously, and hired Chinese housekeepers and attendants at high prices.
At first, because of his foreign status, it was not easy to hire people. Many people looked down on him, so they had to pay a high price. The housekeeper in his house was hired at almost ten times the market price.
In addition, in the past few years, he has always regarded himself as a decent gentleman of the Tang Dynasty. When he met other former compatriots from the Tang Dynasty who did not take a bath, he would hold his nose and curse: "Barbarians!"
In the past few years, Gerdes felt that his soul had been sublimated. He estimated that if he continued to sublimate like this, he might be able to enter heaven after his death.
Well, not heaven!
Because it was almost unbelievable for a decent Tang Dynasty gentry to still believe in the Catholicism of the European barbarians, so from the day he joined the Tang Dynasty, he changed his religious beliefs without hesitation.
After making the choice, and after referring to other Tang gentry, he chose the traditional religion Taoism as his own religious belief.
As for Catholicism, he had already been accused of heresy on the spot, and in his opinion, those heretics must be burned to death. Unfortunately, the Tang Dynasty was too kind to heretics, and they actually maintained a friendly attitude towards heretics.
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Gerdes, who thought he had become a respectable gentleman of the Tang Dynasty, took a naval patrol ship all the way along the Yangtze River to Jiangyin. After preparing to land in Jiangyin, he continued to Jinling with the supply troops of the Army Logistics Department.
The reason why Gerdes went to Jinling was that he naturally wanted to see the prosperous places in the south of the Yangtze River along the way. When he was in Guangzhou and other places, he often heard that the south of the Yangtze River was very prosperous. Now that he had the opportunity, he naturally wanted to
There is something to see, especially the most prosperous Jinling City.
In addition, he was also planning to buy a house in Jinling City so that he could have a place to stay. As a citizen of the Tang Dynasty and a decent gentry, how could he not have a decent house in Jinling City, the capital of the Tang Dynasty.
But the more important reason is that he is ready to open up the business network in this area of Jiangnan!
After all, Gerdes is still a businessman. Even though he was a pirate in the past, although he has not actively robbed merchant ships when he went to sea in recent years, the cannons on his merchant ships are not just decorations. They are real armed merchant ships.
Most of the sailors under his command were also pirates in the past.
Although he has changed careers now, if there is a chance and he meets a big fat sheep, he would not mind making a cameo in his old profession.
Even now when he is searching for craftsmen from all over Southeast Asia, the methods he uses are not necessarily very glorious.
Of course, this all happened after going to sea, but once he arrived in the Tang Dynasty and landed ashore, he would demand himself in the strictest manner and be a decent gentry of the Tang Dynasty at all times.
Gerdes's westward march was relatively smooth. After arriving in Jiangyin on a navy ship, Gerdes generously treated all the navy officers on the ship to a big meal before leaving, and gave everyone a meal.
Everyone gave a small gift, which made the navy officers exclaim, Boss Ge is so generous!
Boss Ge, this is the latest name given to him by the naval officers, and this Ge is also the surname of Gerdes’ Chinese name.
When he was naturalized, officials from the Ministry of Household Affairs had to enthrone his name, but as a Flemish native, his name was particularly long, and in order to fit in with the crowd, he directly used the transliteration of his name as his Chinese name, surname, and given name.
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After bidding farewell to the navy officers, Gerdes did not dare to run around with his two followers. He knew very well that his appearance was rather strange and looked like an evil ghost to many Chinese people. For this reason, he also felt deeply
He has low self-esteem, so sometimes he wears a hat and a veil for the convenience of doing things.
When people ask, they say it's because they can't show their faces or something like that.
The Jiangyin port is not big. It is the navy's own base and a material transfer station. Most of the people inside are navy and army personnel, so he quickly found the army's side and showed his household registration certificate and business certificate.
After receiving the recommendation letter from the ministry, the people from the army did not embarrass him and allowed him to move forward with a supply team that set off the next day.
After setting off the next day, to a certain extent, Gerdes truly entered the prosperous place in the south of the Yangtze River, and what he saw along the way was eye-opening!